Bespoke London Tailor Gets With The Times

Jared Paul Stern Huntsman of Savile Row, established in 1849, has made suits for the likes of the Prince of Wales (later the Duke of Windsor), the Maharajah of Jaipur, Rudolph Valentino, Laurence Olivier, Clark Gable, Gregory Peck and painter Lucien Freud over the decades with little regard for the vagaries of modern taste.

The famed tailoring firm is now undergoing some updates however as part of the Row's attempts to attract new customers.

"Once widely regarded as one of the stuffiest companies on the Row - by itself, and proudly so - [Huntsman] has acknowledged that 'you have to embrace new ideas or get left behind because younger customers want something different,' " its head cutter Patrick Murphy tells The National.

The updates include "more welcoming, modern retail windows" and a younger staff. "But the biggest change has been in attitude," says Murphy. "Before it was 'our way or the highway' - very dictatorial about what the customer could have. The modern consumer wants what he wants."

Huntsman is "certainly for a breed apart," dashing designer Duncan Quinn, known for his own roguish take on Savile Row style, tells Business Insider. "It's one of the only houses on the Row that truly could try to get away with 'my way or the highway.'".